I am a longtime brand guy - mostly from the client side. I write mostly about smart or foolish things that brands do. I teach branding and social media at NYU and for ThirdWay Brand Trainers. Worked in marketing for Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, DoubleClick and others ...

Broder detailed a disappointing drive in cold weather where the real world driving range of the Tesla Model S failed to meet the published estimates. He eventually ended up having the car towed on a flat-bed to the final charging station. Broder chalked it up to new technology and cold weather and he noted:

Tesla’s chief technology officer, J B Straubel, acknowledged that the two East Coast charging stations were at the mileage limit of the Model S’s real-world range. Making matters worse, cold weather inflicts about a 10 percent range penalty, he said, and running the heater draws yet more energy. He added that some range-related software problems still needed to be sorted out.

This was an unfortunate review. The New York Times is an enormous, very influential media outlet with a millions of readers, many of whom are target buyers for Tesla’s 65,000 and up model S.

As a car enthusiast, my reaction to reading Broder’s review was “I would never make that trip with an electric car.” In many ways it was the ultimate torture test for an electric vehicle. Most of us drive our cars under 60 miles a day in traffic conditions that make electric cars ideal. So the New York Times review wouldn’t have put me off buying a Tesla.

Then Elon Musk intervened. Musk is certainly brilliant – besides Tesla he’s responsible for both Paypal and Space-X. The Model S is an astounding car in many ways. Musk may change the face of transportation with Tesla and the Model S is the most important product they’ve produced. But Elon Musk is not a public relations guy. He’s an entrepreneur. The Model S is not a product to Elon Musk – it’s a child. Musk reacted to Broder’s story the same way that a proud father would if he heard someone call his daughter ugly at the school play. He effectively asked Broder to step outside. First he tweeted, then he blogged. There was evidently no adult supervision to keep Musk from responding directly to The New York Times. By doing so, Musk unwittingly created three new problems:

Privacy – Musk’s blog post extensively quotes data from the electronic logs of the Tesla Model S which showed behavior seemingly at odds with the review Broder posted. Reading the blog post, my biggest takeaway was”the frickin’ car company knows when I’m running the heater?” That’s a bigger story than the bad review and Tesla is now stuck with it. They can protest all that they want that they’ll never actually use that data or even look at it. [And to be clear, Tesla asserts that it enables such monitoring only on journalists' cars or with consumer permission. But companies who have the ability to collect data very often eventually use that ability.] Then they can sit in detention with Facebook and Google.

Amplifying the bad review – However bad Broder’s review of the Tesla, it was just one review. Even Broder admitted that the conditions for the drive were less than ideal. And very few people are likely to buy a Tesla Model S for long-distance trips. By picking a fight, Musk drew a 2,100 word response from Broder in the New York Times – essentially another bad review. Plus hundreds of other media articles.

Tesla looks unfriendly – By reacting aggressively, Musk put an unfriendly face on the Tesla brand. When I read Broder’s article, I felt bad for Tesla. It felt as if Broder was putting a bunch of circus clowns in a Mini and then complaining that the car was noisy and crowded. But after reading Musk’s response, I felt bad for Broder and for the New York Times. For a company that has most often gotten great publicity, this was a horrible misstep.

HOW TESLA SHOULD HAVE RESPONDED:

This is not to say that Tesla should have let the New York Times review go unanswered. Every driver knows that a car – any car – will eventually fail in some small or large way and require service. Consumers want to see a car company willing to admit mistakes and eager to fix them. If Tesla had followed four simple principles, the media reaction would have been fundamentally different:

Mirroring – Tesla should have publicly apologized for Broder’s troubles and acknowledged the specific challenges he faced.

Promising - Tesla then could have detailed a specific plans and a timeline for improving the long-distance driving experience. In fact, this is already underway and the charging stations that Broder was trying to reach were just the beginning of a comprehensive network. This gave Tesla the opportunity to trumpet the infrastructure that’s being built so support electric vehicles.

Reframing – Tesla should have then reframed the criticism. Tesla could show that it’s ideally suited for how most people drive their cars today.

Affirming – Finally, Tesla could have recommitted to improving the experience and making every customer happy.

Following these four steps would have defused the negative review, maintained good press relations and shown Tesla to be a friendly, responsive brand.

Of course, if Tesla really believes that outright fraud was committed during the review process, they need not have stopped there. Presenting evidence to a neutral party like The Consumerist (Consumer Reports) or 60 Minutes might have elicited a brilliant counterstrike. By confronting the reviewer publicly and openly though, Tesla has muddied the waters. Many people who support Mr. Musk personally will see a conspiracy, championed by The New York Times against Tesla and electric vehicles. Their voices will certainly be the loudest online. But the more important voices will be those who don’t rant on blogs or tweet – average consumers and prospective buyers who are inclined to trust both Tesla and The New York Times and will just stay away. They would be better served by a neutral review of the claims published in the Times.

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I just love that you wrote that “the New York Times might be in your pocket,” although I think you meant to say that I might be in their pocket. I don’t honestly think they care what I write here, however. If the review was fraudulent – as opposed to unfair – then the better response would have been to get Consumer Reports, 60 Minutes or another respected outlet to investigate or disprove it.

Believe it or not, consumers don’t believe that companies won’t collect data simply because they say they won’t. There’s at least one comment in this stream that shows that.

The saying goes either way, they put money into yours or you take money out of theirs. Not to say I truly believe that, but it comes off that way.

The response has to be quick David, this is the internet. As fast as the story spread, the public will forget the story itself but remember the point, which was this car sucks. If you wait to get a third party involved, then you’ve lost the battle because the public won’t remember the article in question. They can STILL go to a third party, and I agree that it may be a good move, though effectually I don’t think any difference is to be had, as Musk could just as quickly be called out if the data he showed was false.

I understand that companies can say one thing or another about whether or not they collect data, but what you are suggesting is as farcical as the notion that Ford knows every bit of data about my heat usage. Could they? Sure. Do they? Maybe. Anybody could make wild assumptions like that about any company that manufactures anything with a computer on it or develops software.

The farcical bit being that they absolutely didn’t have the capability on every car produced, because they didn’t have the data from Top Gear. Unless they were looking to drive up the cost of their car, they didn’t turn around after Top Gear and say “okay, now we gotta put this on every car, just in case joe schmo wants to bad mouth us”. He states they’re only being installed on media vehicles, and if they’re recording that data on every consumer vehicle, I would venture to say that it is illegal, and would be just as mad about it.

Your comments this time around are a cut above most of what I’m responding to here today, so thanks for that.

It’s an interesting point about speed of response. If there weren’t already some competing voices out there I might be on board with you. But the real experts – Motor Trend and Automobile – along with the Times’ auto critic – have already blessed the Model S. So I’m not sure that a direct response was necessary.

As far as the privacy aspect goes, I think it’s helpful to look at the car itself, the (iPad) size of the data screen and mobile Internet connection and realize that in some ways it is a revolutionary machine, not just for the engine. So it’s not really comparable to other cars and I do think the privacy issue could become a bigger one. The way I read Mr. Musk’s comments is that they don’t activate data collection on every vehicle, not that the tracking ability is not there. But I could be wrong about that.

Forbes undoubtedly enjoys the clicks but I gain nothing from it (as I am unpaid) unless they are clicks from satisfied customers. Which obviously isn’t the case today.

There are competing voices, but good news isn’t interesting or memorable. I’m as bad as anybody with having a very short-term memory for good news, while bad news sticks out. The speed of response is what is important, because those two are now intrinsically linked in anybody’s mind who read both. So yes, being blessed previously by admittedly better sources because of their expertise, is great, but getting panned by a major media outlet definitely warrants a response.

I’ll admit that I’m not even willing to say that this incident would have changed sales figures, but now the Tesla is more on the mind because of the back and forth, and my initial thoughts after Broder’s article are gone.

With the privacy, outwardly there is more available to the consumer with the Tesla S than 99% of cars out there, but between the onboard computer that is on every car, and the data connectivity of things like OnStar and services of the like, the same exact thing could be accomplished. Point being, it is not an issue that is unique to the Tesla, and it is a fact that needs to be brought to public attention before it becomes commonplace.

I will agree that Musk’s comments(having read again) could be interpreted either way. No matter interpretation however, the end result was the same, that they are not activating(if software) or installing(if hardware) on all machines.

Ah. Well you should argue that a click is a click is a click and, whether people like what your opinion is or not, you got them to read it.

I completely agree that good news is not memorable. The spin that a PR person could have tried with CNN/60 Minutes/etc is that the New York Times was doing something fraudulent. That’s essentially what Musk suggested anyway. If a third party (especially another media outlet) vetted his data and came to the same conclusion that would be a big, negative, juicy story.

That is a very fair point, where an expose of sorts would have been(and arguably still would be) a win for Tesla.

I think I’m understanding fully where you’re coming from at this point. That being said, I think where we differ is how it came off. I personally liked the passion that Musk showed for his vehicle, and had he backed off and apologized for the problems it would’ve seemed weak.

I think I’m about done here, thanks for the back and forth. Let it be known I don’t think you’re a bad writer, I just didn’t like the opinion.

Thanks Dwight and I really appreciate that. You may be completely right about the end game here. The reaction on this site has surprised me, so the final media coverage might as well, too. Best of luck.

I can absolutely not have an opinion about whether the Times article was fair. I am writing about the brand and PR issue. If this was fraud, then Tesla should have apologized for Broder’s negative experience (as you always do when dealing with the public) and then worked to get a credible third party to acknowledge and report the fraud as a separate story. The way this was handled, it invited a response from Mr. Broder which will have a lot of consumers very confused. Mr. Broder’s response will be read by more people than Mr. Musk’s comments on his first article and this doesn’t help Tesla.

I don’t have a negative bias when I write about the logs. I have the bias of having worked for a company (Doubleclick) that got on the wrong side of the privacy issue even when it was not doing anything different than what’s done in your mailbox every day. When consumers realize what can be done they assume that you will eventually do it – and they are sometimes correct. So I did read that Tesla does not collect this information except for with journalists and I’m not disputing that, I am just pointing out that this is another red flag raised unnecessarily which could cause Tesla future headaches.